Music History Events: on this day in 1966 and 1974

Music History Events: on this day in 1966 and 1974.

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Single 1966 ‘HEY JOE’ (Jimi Hendrix)

On December 16, 1966, Jimi Hendrix”s debut single, “Hey Joe”, was released in the United Kingdom. Its composition was officially registered in the United States by singer-songwriter Billy Roberts in 1962, but there are divergences and legal conflicts regarding the true identity of the author of the work, since some artists and musicologists maintain that it is actually a traditional song from the Appalachian Mountains. It is often mistakenly attributed to American musician Dino Valenti.

The fact is that in 1966, another folk singer-songwriter, Tim Rose, used to sing a slower version than Roberts” at the Café Wha? of Greenwich Village. Another unknown young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix also played his personal version in the same place. Chas Chandler, British musician ex-bassist of the Animals and at that time in the midst of a search for new artists, heard the song performed by Hendrix on one of his trips to New York and decided to hire him and record with him in England his debut single, “Hey Joe”.

He recruited bassist Noel Reding and drummer Mitch Mitchell as backing musicians and the Jimi Hendrix Experience was born. The track, released by Polydor, was a hit in the United Kingdom reaching number 6 in the English charts and for some marked the beginning of psychedelic blues. Jimi then signed a contract with Track Records, the label of Kit Lambert, producer of the Who. It so happened that Dick Rowe, an executive of the Decca record label, refused to hire Hendrix, as he had done with the Beatles four years earlier.

In the U.S.A., the single was released in May 1967, but it did not even enter the charts. In June of that year, Jimi presented the song live in the United States at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two years later, it would be the last song he played at the Woodstock festival in front of the 80,000 spectators who were there to experience it.

Single 1974: ‘#9 DREAM’ (John Lennon)

On December 16, 1974, the single “#9 Dream” was released, the second single taken from the album “Walls and Bridges”, released two months earlier. Lennon wrote the song during his estrangement from Yoko Ono, (18 months that Lennon would call “The Lost Weekend”) in which Ono suggested to his personal assistant May Peng that he accompany (in all aspects) John. A time he spent in Los Angeles seeing old friends such as Keith Moon, Ringo Starr and Harry Nillson. He helped Ringo and Harry in the recording of their respective albums, but at one point he decided to record his own album.

The words “Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé”, were the result of a dream of Lennon”s and have no special meaning. Inspired by him, John composed and arranged the song with an ethereal atmosphere adding a string arrangement that had already been used by his good friend and drunken partner Harry Nilsson in his version of “Many Rivers to Cross” from the album “Pussy Cats” (whose producer was precisely John Lennon). The vocalist hired to sing the backing vocals did not show up, so it was May Pang who recorded them. As session musicians he had among others Nicky Hopkins on electric piano, Jim Keltner on drums, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar, Bobby Keys on sax and Klaus Voorman on bass.

It peaked at No. 9 on Billboard”s Hot100, cementing John”s fascination with No. 9. He was born on October 9, his first home was on Newcastle road, 9. The first performance of the Beatles at the Cavern Club took place on February 9, 1961. The first time Brian Epstein attended one of their shows was on November 9 of that same year, and the contract they signed with EMI was on May 9. 9, 1962. His son Sean was born like him on October 9 and at the time he died in New York on that fateful December 8, in his native place, Liverpool, it was already the beginning of the end. 9th. 

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